City of York announce new council led homes plan

York is set to have their largest council-led housing scheme for close to 30 years, after a plan was unveiled for a 140 home Lowfield Green development in Acomb.

The development in question will include social housing in general as well as council, as well as a 70-bed care home in amongst a number of self-build plots.

According to Sam Lisle, the Conservative councillor from the City of York Council, at least 20% of these homes that are being built will be deemed as affordable housing.

Should planning permission be granted, work would start in the summer of 2018, with the first batch of homes being made available in 2019.

Speaking about the proposed developments, Mr Lisle claimed that the project is very different to their usual approach, which normally sees land sold off to a private developer, however this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it means that greater input can be achieved now this is the case.

“What we a looking to do now is actually develop this site ourselves,” Lisle said. “To realise some of the value of that through sale of some of the properties we do build. What it allows us to do is have much stronger input to what is built out on the site.”

Out of these proposed homes, more than 30 will be for people over the age of 55, with a mixture of bungalows and flats – all of which will have wheelchair access for those that would need or rely on it to be put in place.